


Amnesia

by stressedoutteenager



Category: SKAM (TV)
Genre: Amnesia AU, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Yousana
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-22
Updated: 2017-07-22
Packaged: 2018-12-05 15:24:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11580834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stressedoutteenager/pseuds/stressedoutteenager
Summary: Sana hurts her head after basketball practice and has temporary amnesia.





	Amnesia

Hospitals. Yousef hated them. Always. For as long as he can remember.

The smell of desensitizer that covers everything else. Nurses and doctors rushing around which means someone is hurting and they need to help. People crying over loved ones suffering. The only good thing he can think of is people giving birth in hospitals but even that is connected to pain. 

He just doesn't like hospitals. Especially not now.

He’s rushing through the main entrance, asking where he can find who he is searching for while his heart takes turns between beating so fast that he fears it will burst out of his chest and it feeling like it doesn't beat at all. His hands are shaking and his voice trembling when he answers the woman at the information counter when she asks who he is here to see.

"Sana Bakkoush."

The woman shows him a polite smile and calmly looks for the right information. Yousef can't wait. He needs to see her. All he knows is that she was brought to the hospital. Elias couldn't really tell him anything because he was having trouble speaking. Even over the phone.

As soon as the woman tells him where he can find his girlfriend he sprints towards the elevators. After pressing all the buttons he realizes he can't wait. He takes the stairs. His stomach feeling uneasy, his head is spinning. Yousef tries to take deep breaths, calm himself before facing her. 

Running through the halls of the fifth floor, Yousef looks at the numbers on the doors and only after seeing 515 on the door, he sees Elias sitting outside of it. Elias hears Yousef coming closer, looks up and then walks over to his best friend before he can barge into the room.

"What happened? How is she? Is she injured badly? But what happened?", Yousef starts rambling as soon as he sees his best friend. 

Only then he notices Elias looking like he is at the verge of tears and he never cries. Not in front of other people. Yousef immediately pulls him into a hug and notices how much he needed that, as well. Not knowing what is wrong with Sana but her being in the hospital makes him want to punch something and cry at the same time.

"I don't know yet. Apparently, after training for a long time under the sun she tripped and hit her head on concrete stairs.", Elias tries to explain but has to stop after every second word. It's his baby sister he is talking about. Yousef's eyes instantly widen and tears spring into his eyes. Without being able to stop it he imagines Sana like that and his chest tightens. 

"Mom and Dad are inside. And a basketball friend of Sana that saw it happen. They're still doing tests and until they're done we should stay here.", Elias puts a hand on his best friend's arm and pulls him to sit. Yousef doesn't budge though.

He shakes his head furiously. "Elias, I can't just sit here. You said she hit her head. It could be very serious. What if..", he doesn't even want to finish that thought.

Hospitals freak him out and make him more anxious than he already is. 

"Yousef!", Elias says in a serious tone, very harshly. "I called you because I thought it's important to you to know that Sana is in the hospital. But it doesn't do any good when you freak out now. I know as much as you and am freaking out here. We're talking about my baby sister being hurt so please shut up and sit down until we can see her."

Yousef knows Elias is right. He needs to get a grip on himself. It's not about him or Elias, it's about Sana. Sitting there, waiting without knowing when anyone will tell them what's going on makes Yousef feel worse and worse. He starts getting a headache, his hands don't stop shaking, he can't even walk up and down the hall because his legs just go weak.

Both boys shoot out of their seats when the door opens and a doctor and nurse leave. Elias quickly asks if they can go in and gets the green light. They warn them to first talk to the patient's parents but neither boy listens anymore after they are allowed to go inside. 

Sana's face lights up when she sees her older brother and she sits up quickly, making her wince. Yousef winces himself, seeing Sana like that but stands back. All he wants to do right now is run over to her and embrace her in a hug and not let her go but he knows family is more important and he is aware that her parents are in the room. He is so concentrated on Sana that he doesn't even realize that her teammate walks past him to leave the room.

"Elias, can you please tell Mom and Dad that I'm fine and can go home now?" Sana complains and looks very sure of herself. 

Elias immediately looks at their parents and sees his father shake his head. Yousef sees that too and his stomach sinks. What is that supposed to mean?

Mamma Bakkoush turns to Sana and asks: "Can you tell me how you got to the hospital?", in a tone that is supposed to proof that Sana cannot leave the hospital now.

Elias and Yousef quickly turn to the girl sitting in the hospital bed, her hijab not as neatly done as usually, just loosely wrapped around her head. Yousef watches as Sana opens her mouth to answer but no words come out of it. She looks from her parents to Elias and seems to have no answer. 

What is happening, is all Yousef can think.

When he saw her sitting on the bed, talking, he felt relieved at first. She couldn't be in a too bad of a condition but now he's not sure at all. 

Finally, Sana's gaze lands on Yousef who stood back for a while. She doesn't show him her dimpley smile, like she usually does when he sees him. She looks down on her hands for a second to avert her gaze from him. He hasn't seen her react to him like that since ... since before they started dating, two and a half months ago. Yousef gets a very bad feeling.

"Elias, you brought your friend?", Sana addresses her brother and doesn't acknowledge Yousef at all after that. His eyes widen first, then he raises his eyebrows and opens his mouth to say of course he would come, he is her boyfriend, but decides against it when he realizes that she genuinely looks confused about him being there. 

At the same time her parents shake their heads at Elias and Yousef. 

"Boys, let’s give Sana a bit alone-time.", her father says and nods for them to leave the room. Neither of the boys moves. Yousef can't take his eyes off Sana. Why doesn't she acknowledge him? What exactly happened to her? The fear of it being very serious comes crashing down on him and he has difficulties breathing. "Let's give her time, now!"

Yousef doesn't really realize that Elias drags him out of the room by his arm. As soon as they close the door to Sana's room, Pappa Bakkoush turns to the boys and starts explaining.

"The doctor is not a hundred percent sure yet but it looks like Sana has transient global amnesia." All Yousef understands is Amnesia and it feels like his heart stops beating. She fell after being exhausted from training too much, how could that lead to this. Yousef wrings his hands together and clenches his teeth. "That's temporary amnesia. Her teammate described that they had been training a lot under the sun and Sana seemed really exhausted and then she fell and hit her head. Those can be triggers for the amnesia. From what the girl explained there were no signs of an epileptic attack that would indicate something more serious. We're going to see if the memory loss lessens over the next hours, which it should but she might not remember things dating back about a year for those next hours."

Elias and Yousef look at each other in horror. Elias is worried about his little sister being in pain, not remembering the past weeks, months or even the past year. She is such an overachiever and now she has temporary amnesia. He doesn't know what to say or what to do. 

"But she'll be fine?", Elias asks.

"And there won't be any long-term consequences?", Yousef asks, feeling himself getting worried once again. "Right?", he asks with more pressure behind his voice. He knows he is talking to Sana's father but he can't help himself. The thought of Sana hurting is bad enough and makes him want to literally cry but her having long-term deficits in her brain? No, that can't be happening. Her brain is what Sana is most proud about herself. She has worked so hard to achieve all the knowledge she has and loosing parts of that would crush her. He doesn't even care that she might not remember him for now. At least not as her boyfriend. The other things are a lot more important to Sana. 

Elias' father nods and makes the two boys sit down for them to calm down. "Honestly, I'm thinking the same as the doctor. It's most definitely temporary amnesia and that usually only lasts up to 24 hours and her memories should come back in the next hours. She might just not remember the incident well or at all. But don't worry. All we can do is to wait and see what happens."

Although hearing this from Sana's father who is also a doctor is relieving, Yousef can't stop worrying. He doesn't have to be a doctor to know that memory loss is not a game. 

"Oh and one more thing: When you go back in don't pressure her in any way to remember something specific.", the boys hear but Yousef feels like it's more directed at him than at Elias, "She has difficulties forming new short-term memories already and doesn't need to worry about that as well."

When the boy enter the room again, Sana is talking to her mother but then turns to Elias and Yousef. Mamma Bakkoush leaves the room after that. When she sees Yousef she raises her eyebrows and asks Elias: "You brought your friend, too?"

Elias just nods, keeping in mind what his father told him. He doesn't even want to look at Yousef because he knows that this must be killing him.

"How are you feeling?", Yousef asks with a polite smile.

Not remembering the past weeks or months, does that mean she doesn't remember they are together? She doesn't remember the first time they hung out alone? The first time they held hands and hugged. The first time she introduced him to her friends and not just as her brother's friend.

Sana smiles at him shyly but looks away quickly, to her brother. "I'm fine. Just have a little headache. No big deal."

Elias laughs at that, to lighten the mood. He sees Yousef's reaction to Sana not looking at him for long and knows he needs to do something. To make his sister feel better and to make his best friend feel better. And to make himself feel better, too.

"Sana, let's be honest here. You just didn't want to go to Aunt Fatima's birthday party so you did all this."

Sana laughs at that but winces lightly. She tried to cover it up but Yousef's hand itches to help her sooth the pain in any way and he extents his hand intuitively but let's it fall next to him when he realizes what he's doing.

"I.. I actually forgot about that but her birthdays can be so hard to endure."

Now Yousef is sure.   
For now, she doesn't remember the first time Yousef introduced her to his cousins. She doesn't remember the time they went to a dance performance of the kids from his kindergarten. She doesn't remember that Yousef finally had the guts to do something about his feelings he had for so long.

His heart breaks seeing her try to hide that she's not feeling too well.

Yousef doesn't hear some of the conversation his best friend has with his sister because he was too deep in thoughts.

Sana asks: "What happened again that I'm here? I'm fine."

Elias' face falls for a second but he conceals it as fast as he can. "You fell and hit your head after basketball practice."

"I... okay.", she doesn't say anything more but her hand finds the same spot on her head like before.

Yousef doesn't know what to do. His girlfriend, who doesn't remember that she is his girlfriend, is in the hospital with what is hopefully just temporary memory loss.

"Do you want to sleep for a while?", Elias asks and then they exchange a few sentences in Arabic which Yousef doesn't understand.   
Then Elias leans towards Yousef and whispers: "Apparently her hijab covers the part of her head she fell on and it hurts. So she wants to take it off."

Yousef understands what he means to tell him and quickly nods. Looking at Sana once more and seeing her already close her eyes, he whispers back: "I'll be outside."

Elias shakes his head. "You can go home and I'll call you when something changes."

The next look Elias receives from his best friend clearly shows that Yousef is going nowhere and that it's not even a question.    
Elias moves and without knowing that he just wanted to sit down Yousef tells him to not leave Sana alone. Before leaving the room Yousef looks at Sana again and presses his lips together.

She should rest. How he feels right now doesn't matter.  
But he still can't help himself. It feels like all the progress they made in the past months didn't even happen. They are back to square one. Sana thinking Yousef only sees her as Elias' little sister. But that hasn't been the case for many years now. In Sana's confused look when she saw him, Yousef could see it. He could see that Sana didn't see him as her boyfriend but only as her brother's friend. Now he knows that she had feelings for him even before they started to properly talk but it doesn't make it hurt less now. The worst part: Yousef feels like he doesn't have a right to feel like this. Sana had an accident that hopefully has no long-term consequences. How he feels is the smallest of the problems right now. 

Sana and Elias' parents are sitting in front of the room and both smile lightly at Yousef as he closes the door behind him.

"She wanted to sleep.", is all Yousef says with a weak smile before he starts pacing up and down the hall. 

"Yousef, don't you want to go home and Elias will call you if something happens. Sana is okay for now.", Elias father says but Yousef quickly shakes his head. 

"No, it's fine. I'll wait here."

After some time in which Sana is just sleeping, her parents go down to the cafeteria and Elias still sits by his sister’s side. The doctors said she is fine, the tests basically confirmed that it's temporary amnesia and within a few hours she should start remembering thing, probably older memories first. 

Another while later Elias leaves Sana's hospital room. Yousef's head snaps up and he looks at Elias questioningly. 

"Did something happen?"

Elias can clearly hear the worry in Yousef's voice. Elias has been sitting by his sister's side for a couple of hours now, in which she just slept. All that time Yousef didn't move from this hall. All he did was walk up and down or sit, facing the door. 

Elias shakes his head. "No, don't worry. I just need to use the bathroom. Maybe you want to go in there? Just so she's not alone if she wakes up while I'm gone."

Yousef immediately stands up and goes to the door. Before he opens it he thinks of something. Elias is not too far away yet so Yousef calls after him. 

"Did you cover her hair again?"

Elias doesn't know if he should laugh, roll his eyes or cry because his best friend, and his little sister's boyfriend, is such a nice and thoughtful guy. Yousef just waits for an answer with raised eyebrows until Elias nods. 

Only then he opens the door slowly and closes it quietly behind him. He tries to be as quiet as possible and sits down on the chair right next to the bed. His eyes wander along Sana's body that is covered by a blanket as if he could see if there are any injuries. 

She's lying on her back, one hand just at the edge of the bed. Yousef leans forward to take her hand in his but stops millimetres away. His hand hovers over hers but he shakes his head and withdraws his hand. She's sleeping, probably still not remembering that he is her boyfriend. It would be wrong. 

Yousef rests his elbows on his knees and looks at Sana. She looks so peaceful when she sleeps. But it's still unsettling. She's lying in a hospital bed. The doctor said she should be fine but that she is still in the hospital makes Yousef feel unsure. Rationally, he knows that it's just for safety measures but he has never been the most rational person. Sana is the rational person in his life that helps him see things from that perspective.

It's a bit eerie. There is barely any sound in the room. The sun is setting so there is not much light either. But he somehow gets used to the silence in the room, right when Sana starts waking up and turning in the bed. 

Yousef sits up straight and braces himself for another comment like: Oh, Elias' friend is here. 

Sana finally turns to the side Yousef sits at. She blinks a few times and slowly sits up. Her eyes wander all over Yousef's face and all he can think is that she's going to ask him to leave. Something in the way she looks at him tells him she still doesn't remember him being her boyfriend. It's okay, he tells himself, it'll come sometime soon.

"Yousef.", she says and stops. She tilts her head lightly and furrows her eyebrows. "What are you doing here? ", she looks down on herself and along the bed and mumbles: "What am I doing here?"

Yousef tries to sound calm to not freak her out: "You fell after basketball practice and hit your head. But don't worry, there's nothing too serious."

Looking a bit confused Sana nods and her hand goes to touch her head. She blinks a few more times and Yousef wonders what the best thing to do would be. She doesn't know why he would be here instead of her brother. If she doesn't remember the past months.

"Maybe I should go get Elias.", he says and stands up. He doesn't get to go far because he feels how a soft hand slips into his and tucks him back. Now he is confused but starts getting happier and happier by the second. With a step back to the bed he looks at Sana who smiles at him, showing her dimples, which makes him start grinning.

"Elias will come soon enough. Having my boyfriend here with me is good enough."


End file.
